A few good things (my weekly round-up)

Psychology of aid

It seems Alessandra Pigni and I are of one mind. In this short feature on Channel Four she talks about why ‘changing the world starts from within’, and acknowledges that as an aid worker, ‘I come here with my wounds as well, and my issues and my problems’

Story-telling and aid

“But it seemed to me a shame that between the highly technical, acronym-heavy documents written within the world of development and the often saccharine self-descriptions of the church workers, there were so few people writing development stories from a human perspective. Stories that were not especially concerned with a man’s eternal soul or his statistical representation, but with his life.”

And I’m both inspired by and envious of the writers who took part in the Writer’s Bloc project she talks about. Check out the links at the bottom of her article in Guernica.

Bringing money back to earth

I had never heard of the Slow Money movement before, but their vision and principles got me all excited this week: a movement to bring money back down to earth.

“The 20th Century was what one venture capitalist called “the largest legal accumulation of wealth in history.” The 21st Century will be the era of nurture capital, built around principles of carrying capacity, care of the commons, sense of place and nonviolence.”

Writing, not writing & whether to read reviews

I have saved this post by Alice Bradley for when my book comes out, she argues that we shouldn’t read reader reviews of our books. Wise friend of mine Susan Piver agreed, saying on Twitter:

@zenpeacekeeper no reviews! the good ones puff you up and the bad ones tear at your soul. both are distractions. that’s my $0.02